Study of French “three strikes” piracy law finds no deterrent effect

More iTunes sales come from "public education," not from fear of piracy.

A recently published study of 2,000 French Internet users found that the widely-publicized "three strikes" law hasn't had much effect on how pirates get their content.

"Our econometric results indicate that the Hadopi [three strikes] law has not deterred individuals from engaging in digital piracy and that it did not reduce the intensity of illegal activity of those who did engage in piracy," report the four co-authors, economists at the University of Delaware and the University of Rennes.

It's not all bad news for the recording industry, though: the authors cite another 2014 study which found that iTunes has seen a 20-25 percent increase in sales of French music just prior to implementation of the law. However, the authors attribute the increased sales to "public educational efforts," not to the deterrent effect of the law.

The study found some evidence that determined pirates who are more well-informed about the law may have shifted away from using P2P networks and towards other methods of illegally sharing content, like "direct downloading" sites and newsgroups.

The study is based on self-reported data, coming from a survey of 2,000 French Internet users. The respondents were asked about their views on and knowledge of the Hadopi law.

More than a third—37.6 percent—admitted to illegal downloading, with 22 percent using P2P networks and 30 percent using "alternative channels." About 16.4 percent of those who had engaged in the downloads received a warning from Hadopi, the government agency with the same name as the law it enforces.

Users who were more aware of the monitoring done by the Hadopi regime weren't any less likely to pirate copyrighted material, although there was a slight affect on the "intensity" of downloading. (The researchers asked whether users were likely to use illegal downloading techniques more than once a month or less than once a month.) The overall effect on file-sharing intensity was "negative but insignificant," researchers wrote.

The high level of publicity around Hadopi caused many to misinterpret what is really being monitored; most respondents thought the monitoring going on was more extensive and thorough than it actually was. Despite that, they didn't change their behavior in any measurable way.

The Hadopi agency has proved unpopular in France. The government there has already backed off the biggest penalty—cutting off Internet access for habitual pirates. Funding for the agency has also been cut.

The four co-authors of the study are Michael Arnold (University of Delaware), Eric Darmon (University of Rennes), Sylvain Dejean (University of La Rochelle), and Thierry Penard (University of Rennes).